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Friday, October 2, 2009

Aion, Wow, Champions, Planetside a little bit of this and that!

Today I'm just going to talk about a few things with different games. Whats going on here and there, stuff I thought was interesting. Also some precautions in some of the newer games, things to be aware of.

WoW
It seems WoW patch 3.3.0 is on the test realm currently! The biggest thing on the horizon for this is Icecrown Citadel.

A few cool highlights from the test realm patch notes:
* Icecrown Citadel. The Forge of Souls, the first wing of the 5-player dungeon, is currently available for testing. Additional Icecrown Citadel dungeon and raid content will be made available in future test builds.

*Summon Imp: This ability is now available from the trainer for level 1 warlocks and no longer requires a quest to learn. Yay no silly quests for him.

*Quest Tracking Feature.This system is currently under development and is not fully functional. Does this mean we can finally stop using addons for questing?

*Looking For Group System. This feature is undergoing several improvements and is not available for testing at this time. Booo!'

*Pets. Avoidance (passive): Now reduces the damage your pets take from area-of-effect damage by 90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players. About time.

Also I saw on Warcraft Pets a couple of new pets have been listed! Calico cat and Albino snake. MOAR PETS!

MMO-Champion has many pictures listed of the new instance. Check those out for sure.

Champions
Champions Online has Bloodmoon on the horizon. With the game newness starting to wear off, this may add some fun to the humdrum that may be starting to settle in. It really looks like it could be a fun time to be playing.

Planetside
Planetside, that's a game you don't hear much about these days. I remember when it first came out it was pretty neat. It offered things many games at the time didn't. Currently S.O.E. has a survey for Planetside going on. You don't even have to be logged in to take it. If you are a fan of the game you might want to check it out.

Aion
If you play Aion then you know the pesky Gold sellers are hard at work spamming the channels. >NERD RAGE< All jokes aside it is very annoying but I have learned that if you block most of them right off the bat, you don't have much more to worry about for the rest of the game session. NCsoft did implement something to try to help, players under level five cannot chat in channel. However the Gold Sellers just level beyond that.

While it can be annoying, it's not the end of the world, learn to use block and use it! Yesterday I saw a player in chat say "Oh wow Aion blocks your Social Security number if you type it in chat!! XXX-XX-XXXX!!" At the time I thought, wow what a lame scam, who would even fall for that. Next thing I see... SS numbers scrolling though chat at a rapid rate. It seems many people actually tried it. /FACEPALM!! Then they proceeded to get upset about it.

Point is, even the players will spam harmful things. Sure chances are nobody is going to take those ss numbers punched in. However it's always better to be safe than sorry. I also saw players putting in websites that looked like the Aion website with subtle changes in the address. They were promoting free items from Aion. Yeah.. ok. You just have to use that noggin on your shoulders and BLOCK!

Fallen Earth
Aion isn't the only game having problems with spam and scams.It seems people are sending emails that try to mimic the in-game Lost & Found system as a way to steal chips from players in Fallen Earth.

There are always people trying to get one over or do things that break the rules within games. Some more than others. It falls into the hands of the companies to try to work as best they can to prevent things like this from happening. However this takes time. So all we as players can do is be aware, use the tools given to us, block, report and keep your eyes open!

Free Realms
Today Free Realms is hosting a pool party! Friday October 2nd, 2009
4pm – 6pm PDT on Server 1. I might hop in today to check it out as I've missed many of the events like this.

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I am off to try to play some Aion while I have some free time today! Keep checking in, I want to post more about Aion as I get further along on it, also those other older game reviews I am still working on. Till next time! -kaozz